On The One Hand

“On the one hand I love you, on the second I would be happy as your wife, on the third hand it’s about time you proposed and on the fourth hand-”

“Lana, I think you only have two hands,” said Timothy.

“Ok, on the one hand I love you, on the second I would be happy as your wife, on the first foot it’s about time you proposed, and on the second foot...” Wait a second. You’re probably a little lost. I can’t blame you. I mean I guess I started at the end of the story. Which, I know, is wrong. So let me start at the beginning.

My name is Lana Turk. I’m very happy. And I do only have two hands. But you see, I had a problem awhile ago. You see, I wanted to get married. I was twenty-five, why shouldn’t I? I’m pretty, I had a good job at a magazine, and I was ready to have a husband. When I first realized this fact I at once thought of Alec. Alec is really nice. We grew up together, he was my next door neighbor, we dated one year in highschool and we’ve always been friends. Which is how all the trouble started I suppose.

I went to visit Alec, he and I both lived in New York then, only a couple blocks apart. When he answered the door I said very simply,

“I’m ready to get married.”

“Well you’re awfully subtle,” he said, stepping aside so I could enter his apartment.

“I’m ready, why should I be subtle?” I asked, “As my mother always says about husband hunting, you should pray to God for a good husband and then go out hunting for one as if it was all up to you.”

“Alright,” said Alec, as we sat down on his sofa.

“Alright?” I was a bit startled. I hadn’t expected him to take my proposal so placidly.

“I’ll set you up.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s what you want isn’t it? For me to set you up on a blind date?”

“Oh...right,” said I said quickly. I never knew Alec could be so dense. Of cause that wasn’t what I had meant.

“My girlfriend Tess has a brother, Timothy. You should like him.”

Well that’s how I meant Timothy. None of it was my fault. It was all Alec’s. No surprise really, I have always been under the opinion that everything is because of Alec. Not just the bad things. You know how scientists are searching for the final theory? The one scientific answer which will solve everything in the universe? I truly believe it’s Alec.

I met Timothy. I really didn’t like him. I mean, I hadn’t wanted to marry Alec all that much at first. But it was one of those things, you know, where you don’t really want to do something until you realize you’re not going to, then the disappointment sets in, and you start to curse yourself for not having wanted it before, because you’re sure it would have worked out if you had. But I dated Timothy. I had to. After Alec set me up with him I couldn’t really say, ‘though it’s very nice of you Alec, I actually wanted to marry you’.

Then it happened. I had been going out with Timothy for about a month, I had only done so with a very slim hope of realizing he was my soul mate, not Alec. And then I did realize it. We were in this bar, is was dimly lit, Timothy had just ordered a beer and I had just ordered a gin and tonic. Just then an Elvis song started playing from a speaker a couple of tables away. Timothy smiled and said,

“I can’t believe this is playing, I love this song.” That’s when I realized I did too. Not only did I love it, but I seemed to love a lot of things Timothy loved. It was amazing I hadn’t noticed it before. We shared so much in common and yet for some reason I had thought we were so different. And so I smiled at him. It was the first real smile I had given Timothy since I met him, I meant the smile, I put my whole heart and soul into that smile, it was the way every smile should be, and he smiled back.

We were in love. I had never really been in love before, not truly in love, it was strange, it was wonderful though. And I kept seeing Timothy. It was when I had known him about three months that I started noticing something strange about Alec. He always acted very strange around us, when I realized that, he was jealous. When I realized he loved me.

At first, I felt very confused, rather lost, I loved Timothy, but I kept thinking of all the times Alec and I had been so happy together. I was so in doubt, so lost, so confused, and then everything became so simple. Alec told me how he felt. It was as he was doing this that I started to doubt my feelings, not for Timothy but for Alec. But the time he was at the end of his rather long speech, I had decided. Timothy. Not Alec. And that’s what I said.

I didn’t see Alec again for a month. I avoided him just as he avoided me. You know, rejected love sure can ruin a friendship.

Then Timothy asked me out for dinner, on the way back, as we were walking through the park, he turned to me and said,

“Lana, I want you to marry me.” I looked at him, standing in the moonlight, smiling at me, the same smile he had given me that time at the bar. Which was when it happened. I had this flashback to when I was six.

My mother was wonderful. But when she got in a bad mood, oh boy, you wanted to stay away from her. Of cause at six, you don’t know that. I still don’t think it was all my fault. True, perhaps I should have been watching where I was crawling on the ground playing with my plastic horses, but she should have been watching were she was walking carrying all of those china plates...it was ugly. Though not quite as ugly as the scolding I got.

We lived in a very small town in North Dakota, and I cannot stress the smallness of it enough, so my mother wasn’t too concerned when, after my scolding, I declared I was running away to where she would never find me and preceded to leave the house.

I had declared she wouldn’t be able to find me so I decided I had to find someplace brilliant to hide, (in my mind I was envisioning huge search parties scouring the country for me). I landed, though in retrospect it seems a bit ghoulish to me, on the cemetery.

It was a very small one, but I thought my mother would never think to look for me there. It was rather late and rather dark, so once I got there, found a place to sit and wait, I realized I was rather scared.

I sat there for what felt like hours due to my fright, but was probably only about ten or fifteen minutes till I decided I wanted to find someplace else to runaway to. I stood up, and there was Alec. He was eight then and a boy so I was rather scared of him. He looked at me, and I looked at him. There was a very long pause and then he said,

“I’m Alec, are you the funny girl next door?” I was smitten.

Now, I don’t know why I had to think of that right when Timothy proposed. Up till then I really have loved Timothy and really hadn’t loved Alec. But right then, just that one memory, changed everything. It’s funny how memories work, just remembering one of them can make everything look so different. I paused and then said,

“On the one hand I love you, on the second I would be happy as your wife, on the third hand it’s about time you proposed and on the fourth hand-”

“Lana, I think you only have two hands,” said Timothy.

“Ok, on the one hand I love you, on the second I would be happy as your wife, on the first foot it’s about time you proposed, and on the second foot I’m afraid I don’t love you as much as I love Alec.” He stood there for a moment. I could tell he was having trouble processing it.

“Alec?”

“I really am sorry Timothy, it’s not fair, but I think it’s the only way it would work out. I loved you more, but right now I remembered something, it doesn’t matter what, at least not to you. But I think it was sort of my brain’s way of saying, ‘no Lana, you really love Alec more then Timothy’. I didn’t know until it told me, my brain did, but I didn’t...that might sound confusing but you understand don’t you?”

“Well...” said Timothy, clearly very much not understanding.

“I’m really truly sorry.” And that, was the last thing I ever said to Timothy.

I married Alec, we’re happy, but if I ever want to scare myself I just think of what could have happened, if I had married Timothy, cause it just wouldn’t have worked out nearly as well, so I just thank my lucky stars that my brain knew so much better then me what I wanted.